Blast from the Past

Nancy Conn, who has owned The Hen House for more than 35 years, enjoys sewing on her hand-crank sewing machine, a Red Lily manufactured by Frister & Rossmann in the early 1900s. A group of 16 quilters gather at the shop once a month to work on projects using their hand-crank machines.

Machine-Quilting Details

Linda Bockheim machine-quilted fireworks shapes in the tan appliqué background, stitched in the ditch between appliqués, and outline-quilted the embroidered stars. She stitched the blocks with stars, loops, and wavy lines.

Salute to Summer Color Option

Quilt tester Laura Boehnke maintained the patriotic look of the original quilt by using the original color palette in the color option. She tweaked the look by incorporating more red fabrics and using tone-on-tone batiks in place of the reproduction-inspired fabrics. Fabrics are from Artisan Batiks by Lunn Studios for Robert Kaufman Fabrics.